Smears of War? 720p Gears of War 2 screens arrive!

The eagerly awaited Gears of War 2 footage was released last night to the delight of fans and gamers. What we saw was some great looking action with far more happening on screen than Gears 1.

I was floored when I saw the down sampled video. Upon further inspection of the 720p feed though, it appears that Epic isn't rendering on screen what we might think. Check out these full 720p direct feed game captures. Jpgs are not compressed.

It appears that Epic has applied a strong smear filter to the engine. This smear effect is also similar to the median blur in Photoshop. Why is it there? Is it there for effect? Perhaps. But does it make the game look better? Maybe if you're using lower res textures and lower poly models. View the images and decide for yourself.